Red Panthers

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of Devato, a development company contracted to build out features for the NextAgency system, which is a large complex application that helps companies and employees in the United States apply for different insurance benefits and packages.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Red Panthers?

Red Panthers provided developers to scale-up the development team for the many features that were required to launch the project.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to boost our development team to build, test, deploy, and monitor new features.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After we were contracted, I contacted several firms and tried a few different engineers out, but they lacked the communication and development skills needed to work with a well-funded and experienced engineering team. Once I contacted Red Panthers, they assured me that they had the expertise needed to deliver quality results.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

The engineers were responsible for taking wireframes and mockups to build features for the NextAgency product. Additionally, they performed writing tests and wrote code.

What was the team composition?

We started with one engineer, who I personally managed every day to ensure that their work was high quality and delivered results according to the client's expectations. Because of the project’s success, we scaled the team up to five engineers. Red Panther’s highest ranked engineer helped manage the rest of the engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

This project was a major learning experience for our company and helped us understand the complexities and issues that can arise from offshoring a project. We developed professional business skills that remain effective today on communication and getting work done remotely. Red Panthers dispelled any preconceived notions we had about offshoring projects.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

In the beginning, I was the sole project manager. Later on, a senior engineer from Red Panthers handled the code reviews and daily management for his team. The entire process ran smoother and they maintained a high product quality. The entire team was motivated and were effective communicators which pleased all of the stakeholders involved.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their willingness to overcome issues with time zone differences and find ways to work together with my company to deliver high-quality results every day over a long period of time a selling point. Red Panthers is a team of highly skilled and passionate engineers who strive to solve problems in eloquent ways. They were eager to learn and train their team on how to improve. They knew how to solve some problems, and when tougher problems arose, we all worked to together to find solutions that worked well for everyone. Overall, they were very accommodating and professional.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

When they brought in a more inexperienced developer, he was not able to keep the same pace as the others, which was not as well-received by my client. If they could match engineers more closely with the pace and level of the client and have new developers learn internally, rather than having them on client code, it could prevent the loss of trust that can happen when deliveries are low quality and behind schedule.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of Planet Cyber, a company that offers IT services and software development services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Red Panthers?

Red Panthers was initially hired to bug fix and the update UI of an existing Ruby on Rails application, but are now also hired for new feature development,  software rewrites for the cloud, Linux deployment, and product technical implementation.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to develop a sustainable radio-frequency identification (RFID) web solutions for companies to keep track of their assets on store premises. They had to be easy-to-manage, troubleshoot IoT devices, and onboard as many clients as possible on a single code base on the cloud.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found the CEO of Red Panther a pool of interviewees. He was quick to understanding the requirement, provided initial bug fixes, and his company's agile and testing culture made it easy to choose them. 

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Red Panther provided Ruby on Rails development, database optimization/administration, and frontend development using HTML/CSS and JS. They created a POS system to interface with our cloud application using Crystal. They also provided support through implementation and scalability research. 

What was the team composition?

Their team was made of a senior Ruby on Rails developer, a junior Ruby on Rails developer, a frontend developer, and a database expert. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Their product is vital to our business operations.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We managed and lead the project, but Red Panther managed the developers. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were impressed with their willingness to go the extra mile and readiness to adapt to new technology.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

They should increase their team size.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Treniq. We’re a B2B trade platform for luxury furnishings.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Red Panthers?

I wanted to augment my development team with Ruby on Rails experts. We needed their help with software development and cleaning up the platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The platform allows furniture suppliers to list their products and be discovered by buyers around the world. In that sense, it's a networking and trade platform but also functions as a financial service engine that assists with completing transactions. Red Panthers was brought in to integrate with our existing development team and as a result, weren’t limited to specific aspects of the project. The initial engagement was intended to take place over a month or two but quickly grew into a more significant undertaking with more developers.

They helped build out our search functionality using Apache Solr and were part of developing the networking component. We’ve had them do a lot of work around Mixpanel, Google Analytics, and building our own reporting engine. They also helped with developing financial services revolving around international payments. Finally, they did typical front- and backend work and advised on performance issues. They utilized Rails throughout the process.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three front- and backend developers in various capacities throughout the project.

How did you come to work with Red Panthers?

I interviewed a few vendors and Red Panthers had a good reputation in the market. In fact, another company I spoke to recommended them to us. They also had excellent reviews from companies they’ve worked with previously, so I decided to give them a try.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around £25,000–£30,000 ($34,612–$41,534 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

This engagement took place April 2017 – January 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I’m very happy with what they delivered. There’s always more that can be done, but the quality is quite good.

How did Red Panthers perform from a project management standpoint?

Their developers supplemented my team, so I handled most of the project management. A representative of Red Panthers did check in with us occasionally to bring the developers up to speed and see how things were progressing. However, he wasn’t assigned to the project in any way.

We used Slack as a communication tool and it worked out well. Communication with one team member was slightly difficult, but that person is less experienced than the rest of the team. I’d reach out to Red Panthers if something wasn’t getting delivered correctly and they’d quickly resolve the problem. They’re quite responsive in that way.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their developers are incredibly analytical and capable of proper software development. I could throw complex problems at them or assign loosely defined solutions and they’d go through the whole process and come back with questions. They didn’t need to be heavily managed, which impressed me considering they’re a small business. Furthermore, they submitted timesheets to a program that took a snapshot of the developer’s screen every five minutes. This transparency built trust. Ultimately, the code they delivered was adequately tested, especially the backend.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should consider how to better unit test frontends, as it’s very important. If they want to do a great job, their consultants should take the lead in the future. Additionally, if I scaled up the project to four or five developers, I’d likely need access to a senior staff member to coordinate them. I didn’t face this issue, but it’s something for them to consider as the company continues to grow.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of Clickx, a marketing intelligence platform

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Red Panthers?

I hired them to develop, enhance, and maintain an existing application.

What were your goals for this project?

My goals were to improve scalability by adding new features and upgrading many of the existing features. I also wanted long-term support to both maintain a good, bug-free code base and add a range of new functionalities. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After vetting several potential partners, Red Panthers delivered the best quality work.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

They provide end-to-end Ruby on Rails development services. 

What was the team composition?

The team includes both frontend and backend developers and a dedicated project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The software development is going flawlessly.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Dedicated resources are added as necessary to ensure things run smoothly.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I have been impressed by their flexibility in gathering requirements and their ability to deliver a customized solution. 

Are there any areas where they can improve?

There are really no areas of improvement.